Just Thinking – Everyone loves going to the doctor

April 11, 2014

Everyone loves going to the Doctor, I rate it right up there with visiting your in-laws, especially if they were marching around in front of the church, just before your wedding, carrying signs in protest. To some people going to the doctor is akin to trying to convince a cat that a bath is a good thing. It seems that we have an inbred fear of Doctors and Dentists. It starts out with our appointments. They will schedule you for a certain time, and if you’re 15 minutes late, they will cancel your appointment.

However if you do show up on time, patients have been known to wait up to 2 hours or more to see the doctor. I have often wondered if things would change if we charged them for our time waiting for more than an hour. Finally someone will take you to a room, where you will wait another half hour. I surmise that it’s just to make sure you don’t walk out on them.

I don’t know where some of the receptionists came from. But evidentially they don’t want to be there, judged by their attitude. I think part of their training includes how to be rude, snobby or how to ignore the patients. I have seen patients come into a Doctor’s office bleeding or in pain, and the response was, “Please sign in and take a seat.” Where’s the compassion in that?

Some of us have had such a terrible experience with doctors that the thought of going to one makes us shudder in fear. The word’s “take off your clothes and put on this paper gown” really excites us, especially when it’s 30 degrees in the room. (“But Doctor, I only came in for a sore throat.”)

A lot of Doctors make us feel very uncomfortable. While we sit on the table, trying to explain our conditions, we are only met with head nods, or unintelligible grunts. We are finally told the diagnosis, but haven’t had an opportunity to ask the Doctor about our concerns, or express our thoughts. But he’s the Doctor, he knows already. The Doctor will write you a prescription you cannot read, to take to a pharmacy that charges you an arm and a leg to fill, and you blindly take your medicine without question.

The Emergency Room is not any different. I have gone into the emergency room in such pain that I thought I would expire in minutes, and they had me sitting while in great pain while they decided to finally call me, into a small room to ask questions, and weigh me. I guess if I died, it would help to have all that information so they can know who to bill for the time I spent waiting for them to see me.

Now I want you to know that not all doctors are like this. There are a lot of great doctors out there who interact with their patients. Who don’t make you wait all day, and will take the time to listen to your concerns. I have such a Doctor, and I am glad I can call him my friend.